50 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



In Denmark, notwithstanding the severity of the climate, they succeed in bringing to a tolerable degree 

 of perfection most of the best sorts of fruits. Glass frames, portable canvass covers, and mats, are used to 

 protect the blossom of the more tender trees against walls ; and the hardier sorts, as the apple and cherry 

 ore, in spring, before the blossom expands, watered every night, in order at once to protect and retard it 

 by an envelope of ice. This ice is again thawed off before sunrise by copious waterings. 



225. The culinary vegetables of Germany are the same as those of Britain ; but they 

 are without the greater part of our best varieties. The Brassica tribe and edible roots 

 arrive at greater perfection there than in France. The popular sorts are the field-cabbage and 

 the borecoles ; they are used newly gathered, and boiled and eaten with meat, in broths 

 or soups, and pickled in the form of sour kraut for winter use. The potatoe, kidney- 

 bean, onion, and lettuce, are also in general use ; and the first gardens possess all the 

 oleraceous and acetaceous vegetables grown in France and Holland. 



SuBSECT. 4. German Gardening, as to jilanting Timber-trees and Hedges. 



226. Planting as a matter of jirojit has been little attended to in Germany from the num- 

 ber and extent of the native forests. In some districts, however, Pomerania for example, 

 barren sandy tracts are sown with acorns and Scotch pine-seeds, chiefly for the sake of 

 fuel and common husbandry timber. Much attention, as Emmerich informs us {Culture 

 of Forests), and as appears by the number of German works on Forsttvissenschaft, is in 

 general paid to the management of forests already existing ; as far as we have been able 

 to observe, this extends to filling up vacancies by sowing, and occasionally draining and 

 enclosing ; thinning and pruning are little attended to in most districts. The oak, the 

 beech, and the Scotch pine, are the prevailing native trees of Germany. 



227. Rows of trees along the public roads are formed and preserved with great care, 

 especially in Prussia. The mulberry is the tree used in some of the warmer districts, 

 and in other places the lime and the elm ; the Lombai'dy poplar is also common hear 

 most towns of Germany, especially Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzic. Some attention is 

 every where paid to public avenues ; and the highways being, as in France, generally 

 kept up by the government, improvements can be executed promptly and with effect. 

 Tliere being, in general, no accompanying hedges, and the trees being trained with naked 

 stems to ten or fifteen feet high, according to the lowness or exposure of the situation, 

 little injury is done to the materials of tlie road in wet weather. The breeze passes 

 freely between the stems of the trees. The traveller and his horses or cattle are shaded 

 during sunshine, and sheltered during storms ; and the man of taste is furnished with a 

 continued frame and foreground to the lateral landscapes. 



228. Hedges, though not general in Germany, are used on the Rhine and in Holstein, 

 the plants generally hawthorn, but sometimes hornbeam or a mixture of native shrubs. 

 Hungary is the most backward province in respect to planting and hedges, as well as to 

 every thing else. A hedge there is rare ; and there are scarcely any public avenues be- 

 yond Presburg. Existing woods are subjected to a sort of management for the sake of 

 the fuel they afford, and for their produce in timber and charcoal for the mines. 



SuBSKCT. 5. German Gardening, as em^nrically practised. 



229. The use of gardens is as general in the best districts of Germany as in England ; 

 but in Hungary and some parts of Bohemia, Gallicia, and Prussia, many of the low^er 

 orders are without them, or if permitted to enclose a few yards of ground near their 

 wooden hovels, they seem too indolent and indifferent, or. too much oppressed by the 

 exactions of their landlords, to do so. The cabbage tribe, and cliiefly red greens, and 

 the potatoe, are the universal plants of the cottage-gardens of Germany ; lettuce, pease, 

 onions, and turnips, with some other sorts, and the common fruit-trees, are introduced in 

 some districts. Flowers are not very general, but the rose, thyme, and mint, are to be 

 seen in many places, and a variety of ornamental plants in the better sort of cottage- 

 gardens. 



230. Farmer s gardens, as in most countries, are a little larger than those of the 

 lowest class of cottagers ; but inferior in point of order and neatness to that of the man 

 who lives in his own cottage. 



231. The gardens of the hereditary families are not, in general, much attended to ; their 

 appearance is too frequently that of neglect and disorder. Cabbage, potatoes, apples, 

 and pears, and perhaps a few onions, are the produce expected from them ; these are cul- 

 tivated by a servant, not always a gardener, and who has generally domestic occupations 

 to perform for the family. It will readily be imagined that, in such an extensive country, 

 there are innumerable exceptions ; in these, the gardens are better arranged, and the pro- 

 duce of a more varied description. Next to the gardens of the princes or rulers, the best 

 are those of the wealthy bankers and citizens. These are richly stocked with fruit-trees, 

 generally contain hot-houses, and are liberally kept up. Some of them contain collections 

 of exotics. The best private gardens in Denmark belong to this class, and the remark 

 will apply in the vicinity of all towns and cities in proportion to their rank as com- 

 mercial places. 



